“The town, I think. The bars.”
“We’re at The Anchor.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Are you free?”
The old response tries to claw its way up.Let me check. I’m not sure. I should probably rest.Then, the new version of me—the one that’s been taking over since I got into that car—speaks up.
“Yes.”
I feel Griffin’s hand find the small of my back. He leans in, his breath warm against my ear. “There’s my girl.”
“Where’d you learn to play like that?” someone asks.
I could talk about the years of teachers and the hours of practice. I could mention the formal education in precision and control.
It’s not what comes out.
“My mother is Irish,” I tell them.
The group look at each other and nod.
“Ah,” someone says. “That explains it.”
It does. It explains everything.
I’m playing at a bar called The Anchor, at a festival I’ve wanted to visit for years, and my mother’s music has always been in my hands, even when I forgot it was there.
I hand the violin back.
“Nine o’clock. The Anchor. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t,” I say.
And I mean it. I haven’t been this on time for myself in years.
Forty-Two
Griffin
The band is called Loose Gravel.
I know this because the guitar player—his name is Cal, by the way—told me when we arrived at The Anchor, and also because it’s on a hand-painted sign above the small stage at the back of the bar.
Loose Gravel has been playing together for four years and tour the festival circuit. They have a following. They are, by any reasonable measure, a real band with real fans, and their fans are all in this bar tonight, along with everyone else who came from the festival and heard there was music.
Piper has been silently hyperventilating for fifteen minutes. When we arrived backstage, the noise of the crowd reached us from the other side of the wall, and she went very still.
Backstage at The Anchor is a storage corridor with two kegs, a box of napkins, and a fire door that doesn’t fully close.
Piper is standing with the borrowed violin in both hands, bow gripped in her right, staring at the stage with the expression of someone doing complicated sums in her head.
Every time the crowd noise spikes through the wall, she breathes faster.
I’ve been watching it build since we arrived.
Cal gives me a look from across the corridor. The look says:Is she okay?
I give him back a look that says:Give her a minute.
He nods and disappears toward the stage.
